


Tell Me I'm Wrong

by hellostarlight20



Series: If only... [10]
Category: Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: Angst, F/M, Hope, Romance, Tumblr Prompt
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-01
Updated: 2018-07-01
Packaged: 2019-05-31 13:08:36
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,068
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15120065
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hellostarlight20/pseuds/hellostarlight20
Summary: On a planet during a picnic, the Doctor accepts Rose's absolute love and commitment.





	Tell Me I'm Wrong

Tell me I’m wrong

Rose stretched out on the blanket and leaned against the Doctor’s shoulder as they sat atop a hill on a planet she almost pronounced correctly. Neither the planet nor her pronunciation mattered. Not when she and the Doctor enjoyed a light picnic, a gorgeous orange sky overhead, blue grass beneath her feet—or in this case her bum—and the Doctor’s arm around her shoulders.

His right heart beat beneath her ear and Rose closed her eyes, breathing in the scent of him, the faintly-grassy scent of their surroundings, and the easy rambling of the Doctor’s latest talk on other places he’d take her where they could share picnics.

If this wasn’t her idea of paradise, she’d—

“What?”

The Doctor cut himself off, a perfectly normal occasion when the need called for it. A hoard of angry whosevers attacking, her drifting off to sleep while he rambled on. More recently, when she cut him off with a kiss.

Far as she could tell, none of the above applied. Twisting enough to not dislodge his arm and still see him, Rose squinted in the twin suns and tried to make out the problem. He hadn’t stiffened beneath her—pun fully intended thank you very much—and wasn’t grabbing her hand to run.

Rose had no idea what caused him to stop speaking and in the mere seconds since that happened, panicked.

“What’s wrong?” She looked around the hilltop again but nothing. No attacking mobs, swarms of bees, storm clouds rolling in, nothing. Rose sat straighter and gripped the Doctor’s hand.

“Tell me I’m wrong.”

Her heart nearly stopped. She whipped her head back around to stare at him, completely flummoxed. “What?”

The Doctor cupped her cheek and leaned closer. His eyes, normally a light brown, sparked with such intensity, Rose felt as if she drowned in them. As if he mesmerized her. She licked her lips, gratified when his gaze flicked to the small movement.

“Doctor,” she whispered around a throat dry with hope and tight with concern. “What’s wrong? What’s happened? What are you wrong about?”

“I’m not though, am I.” Again he said the words with that heavy knowledge of certainty, not angry, not even resigned, just—him.

“About…?”

He didn’t answer immediately, and Rose wrapped her hands around his wrists. She slowed her breathing and calmed her mind, though it desperately wanted to leap from one conclusion to the next.

Her stomach twisted with the knowledge she refused to acknowledge. She already knew what he meant but needed to force him to say the words. They almost—almost—made it to the point where the Doctor stopped his fancy circumnavigation of a subject.

Rose wasn’t about to let him start again now. She resisted cursing herself about projecting so many emotions and focused instead on projecting one. Her calm acceptance and love for this amazing man. 

“Doctor,” she said slowly. “What are you talking about?”

“You shouldn’t, you know. It’s dangerous. I’m dangerous.”

“You’ve said that before.” Rose had no idea where this conversational path led but hopped on the train nonetheless. “I’ve seen you at your worst, Doctor. It doesn’t change anything.”

“It should. There’s so much you don’t know about me, Rose Tyler.”

It was absolutely not her fault her skin tingled and she wanted to snog him every time he said her name like that.

“There is,” she agreed. “There’s probably a lot about you you’ve forgotten. Nine hundred years is a long time to remember everything. Even for you. But that doesn’t change the core of who you are. It doesn’t change the person inside even if the outside does change.”

The Doctor continued to watch her as if he read her mind, though she knew he’d never without asking first. Her own, apparently loud, projecting aside. Not after that faux pas on their first trip with the TARDIS’s telepathy. But he could sense surface emotions and Rose didn’t hesitate. She didn’t so much as blink.

There were a hundred emotions she could project just then. Friendship, empathy, sorrow understanding. Her usual _I’m here for you, always_ , she tried to will him to understand whenever they held hands.

_I love you._

That’s what she thought, what she felt with every breath she took. It’s the emotion that welled inside her at the mere sight of him, the barest snippet of his voice. In the morning when she woke and met him in the kitchens for breakfast. In the evening before she finally left him to his tinkering for much needed sleep.

_I love you._

“You’re not wrong,” she whispered, afraid to break the spell around them despite the emptiness of the hill. “But you already knew you weren’t. Why did you think you were?”

“I don’t want to hurt you.” The words ripped from him, sounding as painful as he looked. “Never that.”

In one smooth move, or what Rose hoped looked as smooth as it felt, she knelt in front of him and kissed him. “Doctor,” she breathed against his mouth. “I love you.”

The Doctor didn’t answer, merely held her closer and kissed her back. As if he needed her kisses to sustain his life. Fingers tangled in her hair, mouth desperate on hers, pulling her closer and closer.

Rose wrapped her arms around his shoulders and ran her fingers through his hair. While relatively new, kissing the Doctor was her absolute favorite thing in the universe. Even if he was currently running scared.

“It’s all right.” Rose gasped for breath and tried to soothe him. “Doctor, I’m here. It’s all right.”

“I never want to lose you.”

“I’ll always be with you. No matter what, yeah?” She willed him to understand that even when she died, hopefully in a hundred or so years, she’d still be with him. Her memory, their memories together.

“If only.”

Rose frowned at those cryptic words. “If only what?”

But the Doctor didn’t answer. He pulled her to the blanket and wrapped his arms around her. “I won’t leave you, Rose Tyler.”

It settled then, like once of those immovable time things. What had he called them? Fixed points. And Rose realized something new about the Doctor. He finally understood her. Accepted her vows, her promises, the ones she made, though never truly voiced, since leaving that Cardiff basement.

“I’m never leaving you,” she vowed.

If only that were true.


End file.
